CPAs Working with a Business Coach Describe their “Cutting Edge” above the Rest

Lisa Tierney, CLSC is a certified life strategies coach, marketing expert and founder of TIERNEY Coaching & Consulting, Inc., which serves multi-partner CPA firms across the country.    Lisa interviewed several up-and-coming CPA professionals who shared their slant on how using a business coach helped them to define - and achieve - success.  Enjoy this interesting read.

Eric Larson, CPA/ABV, ASA, CBA, CMA, CFE is a partner with the Grand Rapids based CPA Firm, Beene Garter LLP.  Eric offers expertise in the areas of forensic, valuation and litigation services concerning disputes and/or business transactions.   His practice has grown exponentially over the last few years while he has been working with a coach.  When asked how using a coach helped him improve as a professional, Eric replied, “The area I have improved the most has been in creating structure and focus around business development.  I was always active and doing the “right things”.  But the added structure and focus really helped me become more efficient and spend time in those areas and on those activities that really mattered.”

Jon Moll, CPA provides financial expertise and education for nonprofit organizations and is a shareholder at the Delaware-based CPA firm of Belfint Lyons & Shuman, P.A. Jon’s practice area has thrived over the last year while he has been working with a coach.  When asked how using a coach helped him improve as a professional, Jon said, “Coaching gave me a better awareness of the importance of the branding of myself as an individual and how that benefits not only me but also the firm.  It also instilled in me a more disciplined approach to making practice development a priority.”  

What’s the Most Valuable Aspect of Using a Coach?

“The most valuable aspect of working with a coach is the third-person perspective you receive”, says Eric Larson.  He added, “The coach sees you and your firm in a different way than you can.  They can give you honest feedback and point you in directions you were not aware of before.  The coach gives you a much more comprehensive view that really helps you use your best traits, and helps develop those areas that need improvement.  The coach provides a plan and structure, rather than just a scattershot approach.”

Gabrielle Luoma CPA, CGMA is the Chief Executive Officer and Visionary of Gabrielle Luoma CPA Firm, located in Tuscon, Arizona which she started nearly ten years ago.  Gabrielle says that coaching helped her to improve her leadership skills and plan more strategically.  “Coaching helped me with direction and focus” she says.  “I learned I can go after what I want and that if I set specific goals I can take baby steps and reach them.”

“I think there are two incredibly valuable aspects”, offers Jon Moll.  “The first is that you have access to a different type of thought process.   Accountants are trained to analyze data and people in a very methodical and facts based approach.  My coach helped me to analyze relationships, situations, and thought processes and how each affects the process of decision making or influencing.  Secondly, coaching gives you motivation to achieve tasks outside your comfort zone.  CPAs have a tendency (absent imminent deadlines) to prioritize based on what they are good at or comfortable with achieving.  Some practice development items such as speeches, written articles, and asking our clients for more work is sometimes viewed as not important at the present time.”  Jon also noted that a coach establishes a sense of accountability in making sure the items get accomplished in a timely basis.

 

When asked if coaching at work trickled over in other aspects of their life, all agreed that it had.  Jon Moll offered, “I spend more time “building” relationships with people rather than letting established relationships go stale.  Eric Larson agreed. “Coaching has reaffirmed that a big part of life is all about developing real, personal relationships with people.  When you make those great connections, personally and professionally, it is very enriching.”  Gabrielle says, “Coaching made me be more balanced and recognize that my life wasn't all about the business. It was about family and personal well-being too.”

“Success or failure will be determined by whether or not you buy-in to the program and how much effort you put in”, says Jon.  “The CPA is in the driver’s seat.  The coach is only holding the map.”  Gabrielle explained what surprised her about working with a coach.  “I learned from their experiences and was able to apply that to my own life and business, which I didn’t expect.”  Eric relayed that the most surprising thing about working with his coach was, “that I have developed a great friendship with my coach.”

These CPAs have come to work with a coach because of different circumstances.  Gabrielle met her coach through her involvement with a networking group, BNI (Business Networking International).  Jon Moll’s CPA firm initiated a professional development coaching program a few years ago.  “The program’s objective was to help develop personal marketing plans for the firm’s future leaders (positions supervisor through director.)    I was included in the second wave of participants after the first group had extremely positive feedback.  I volunteered to be included in the group.”  Eric Larson’s firm decided to bring on business coaching to augment the firm’s current business development function.

Among this group of CPAs who are near or under 40 years of age, the consensus is that coaching is a very effective means by which to grow your particular practice or service area and also a great way to improve your overall professional – and personal – experience.

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Lisa Tierney, CLSC is a certified professional life coach who works predominantly with CPA professionals, assisting CPAs in growing their practice, developing their leadership abilities, effectively managing their relationships and finding graceful exists around succession planning.

What Must Firm Leaders Do? - If their goal is to remain independent (i.e. not merge up) in the next 5 years?

I know many mid-size regional firms (10-25 partners, $8 - $15 million in revenue) who are facing this issue - how will they payout retiring partners who have large books of business in a way that fosters good client service (from the second tier partner group) but also encourages new clients to be brought in...how will this work?

Firms who figure it out will do so by rethinking the roles and responsibilities of all professionals at the firm.  They will have to leverage their work product/processes, re-think their compensation structure and consider targeting new clients in a way that gets them the biggest bang for their buck - i.e. niche-focused marketing to attract ideal clients that have proven the most lucrative for them in recent years.

How can a proposal deliver the kind of value that makes the prospect want to become a client - NOW?

I would offer that embellishing the specifics around this by offering a way that a proposal can deliver compelling value that make the reader want to buy now…. A short list of bullet points that explain how the firm (the one proposing) offered similar value to other clients similar to the prospective client –

t What was done, for what kind of (general description) client and the value or result that was achieved

t Three or more bullets should raise an eyebrow of confidence

 t Commitment to a niche or specific type of ideal client to “prospect” to helps

Perhaps another topic of discussion here:  How important is niche-marketing in your plan to improve your closing rates for new business?

Two pressing issues for Shareholders at CPA firms

My clients are relaying a stronger need around finding talent to do the work that's been coming in and also assisting with transition plans for senior partners.

They really do go hand in hand, as retiring partners struggle with identity issues and establishing a new role at the firm;  conversely, since younger partners will be taking on more, it will naturally trickle down to a need for more talent.  Empowerment issues will take center stage as Baby Boomers face their hardest challenge yet – letting go and stepping back.

Shareholder of all ages will have to engage in some serious, thoughtful, honest dialogue around new compensation structures that will support both the succeeding workload while rewarding business development efforts.  Talent at all levels should be educated about leveraging relationships, technologies and internal process to support both of these initiatives.

It won’t be easy but will be a significant and unavoidable change that will occur over the next 10-15 years.  I predict at the end, we will see:  more value-based pricing models, more flex-time at all levels, more outsourcing and more strategic alliances.  Compensation (traditional and incentive-based) programs will also look at lot differently and most likely be simplified as well.   

Next week marks my 15th year at the national AAM Conference. I will share some tips with you that might help you maximize your experience:

1. Have a well-formed outcome that is reasonable.  I would suggest that you decide up front that you will identify 1 or 2 goals/objectives (no more – eve though you will be excited to take on more after all the sessions you will attend) that you would like to bring home and apply to your firm.  If you are not sure what those main initiatives might be (or should be) that’s OK.  That will be your goal – to figure out the TOP 1 or 2 things that you need to focus on and bring to fruition at your firm.

2. Get yourself a butt-kicking buddy.  During the conference, look out for someone who matches your skill level/experience around accounting marketing – someone you would enjoy developing an open, honest, non-competitive relationship with.  Approach them with a clear proposition:  How about we schedule bi-monthly teleconferences so that we can hold ourselves accountable to each other to work toward specific goals that we help each other set?  This person can be in a different market, time zone than you and can be older or younger;  your skill set can reflect different areas of strength so you can educate each other on certain endeavors – a buddy system works – I have found friends for like using this approach.

3. Skip a session and go have FUN!  Shhhh…don’t say I told you to – but they are long conference days out there –so don’t work TOO hard.  100 degrees in Vegas so I’m not sure about a sight-seeing tour on foot during the afternoon but you can find me at the pool on Tuesday afternoon as I have promised myself 90 minutes poolside to relax (my favorite place to be!)

Have a great conference everyone – if you see me, make sure to say “Hi”

Top Marketing Initiatives Defined - results from my survey of over 100 CPA firms

In March 2013, I surveyed 113 members of management (Managing Partners, Partners, etc.) and marketing professionals (CMOs, Director of Marketing, Marketing Mangers, etc.) at CPA firms from across the United States in order to ascertain what their top initiatives were:  some gave 3-4 main initiatives;  a couple said they had none.  The top 6 main marketing initiatives for last year were:

• Websites
• Niche-focused marketing efforts
• Branding (or Re-Branding)
• CRM
• Social Media
• Lead Generation

Some interesting insight I also obtained was around what the main obstacles were during implementation - and how (when/if ) they were overcome. Turns out the collaboration between marketing and management was the problem (i.e. communication, well-formed outcomes and interaction overall) kept things bottle necked and stifled.

So what is blatantly wrong with this picture?  Three of the top initiatives are passive marketing activities and three are active - do you know the difference?

Partners should NOT be spending their time on these passive marketing activities because these will not directly impact the bottom line - ahem, revenues, new business - at their firms. So what we need is a redefinition of the roles and responsibilities that these accounting professionals should assume in order to ensure their effectiveness at marketing.

Next up is what the number one key factor to succeeding at their CPA firm is for the partners....do you think you know what it is?

Stay tuned...

A Innovative Approach to your Incentive Compensation Program

I have tackled this challenge before with my clients and believe I have come up with a unique approach to tracking the marketing and revenue generating activities of professional staff in a way that educates and motivates.  In a nutshell, it is an on-going program for all staff that is geared around traditional goals:  billable hours, meeting deadlines, realization rates, etc., the non-traditional goals:  marketing, business development, client relationship management/retention and then there are the non-tangible values:  integrity, professionalism, honesty, quality of relationships, trust, etc.

Professionals are “graded” using a report card approach to their efforts in the traditional and non-traditional categories – using a tiered scoring mechanism that clearly outlines/describes the following grades – Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Outstanding – and there are points associated with each.  As an example, there are sub-categories under “Marketing” and one might be authorship and the grade around defining a person’s performance might range from blogging sloppily with typos, blogging 3-5 times /year, creating an outline for an article, writing an article for a target publication, writing 3 articles …etc.

There are also Witness Weeks 2-3 times throughout the year where professionals are encouraged to provide testimony where they have witnessed others at the firm conduct themselves in a way that meets the defined criteria of the core values of the firm.  Professionals who witness as well as those who are witnessed each get points.  Folks are allowed to submit 100 words or less on the subject matter. 

The idea of points associated with each of the tracking mechanisms promotes a well-rounded professional but also can award a very narrowly focused person’s efforts;  it also deters favoritism, which has often reared its head during the evaluation process - inadvertently - due to human nature. 

TIERNEY’S TIPS for Being a Successful Mentor & Mentee

I facilitated a discussion on mentoring programs among HR professionals from CPA firms throughout the U.S. Interesting findings are in my article in Accounting Today.

I admit to having made some assumptions on how this conversation might go and was surprised by some of the answers to my questions as well as what surrounded the motivation and the challenges that these programs presented

As a compliment to the article I wrote which appeared in today's Accounting Today, I am adding some content which was left out due to their word constraints.  Here are my tips for being an effective mentor - and mentee.  Read on:
 

For the Mentor:

·         Commit to getting to know your mentee. Shares stories of your own struggles in order to make them feel comfortable

·         Try to put yourself in their shoes

·         Actively listen and ask thought-provocative, open-ended questions

·         Try to help them figure out what they want – or, more importantly, identify the essence of what they want

·         Encourage them to figure out next steps for themselves, rather than tell them what to do

·         Regularly initiate meetings with your mentee by friendly, sincere invitation

For the Mentee:

·         Honor the time and commitment from your mentor

·         Be brave and open up about your dreams, goals, and areas for improvement (in a professional, accountable manner)

·         Realize that, in a multi-generation workplace, you each have things to learn from each other

·         Accept all feedback as positive – the kudos as well as suggestions for improvement or alternative solutions to an issue or problem

·        Actively listen and ask lots of questions

 

Read the complete article in Accounting Today.Mentoring-Programs for CPAs - featured in today's Accounting Today

How Important is it to have a LinkedIn Profile?

I was talking to our LinkedIn expert, Cheryl Oribabor today (she does our trainings) so I asked her thoughts, too – we believe that setting up a LinkedIn profile with no connections doesn't really do more harm than good. It's just that there's really no point to it.  Ultimately, it may help a smidge with SEO for the firm. 

We believe that a good LinkedIn profile should be created to showcase your professionals, of course.
 

But if someone sends a message to start a conversation and no one responds, it is definitely a negative.  So we need to take a few steps back and discuss the importance of USING and leveraging LinkedIn.  People can't value what they don't understand so it is our job to convince them that they are missing the boat if they are not engaged in this social media.  How you do that is to show them that people are looking for them on LinkedIn (after we have set up profiles for our clients, we wait a couple of weeks and then go back and show them how many people have viewed the profile - this usually shocks them!)  Tell them that 70% of all prospects and referral sources search for them online before they meet with or hire them.  Their LinkedIn profile will come up first in the search engines.  Also, professional service providers should be shown examples of how LinkedIn can be used to target their niche groups and attract their ideal client.  It has taken asset marketing to permission-based marketing.  It’s the best thing to ever happen to professional services marketing!!

We also know how to write LinkedIn profiles that make visitors aware of the depth and breadth of your professionals' expertise.  Let people see that you have well-rounded people with not only successful careers but also hobbies, who volunteer and do interesting stuff outside of work! A 360 degree look at them as human beings - their natural, genuine differentiator! Some consistency is definitely recommended, but we feel each profile should be somewhat individual - they are all different people, with different positions, industries, etc...different stories to tell. Sometimes we find that's the hardest part- getting them to "open up" virtually and show themself to the world. And yet it’s the reason they are selected as service providers – rapport or chemistry – and this is a great way to be show you they really are.

Feel free to contact us with any more questions, (from you or that you think they might ask!) we've had some great successes in this area!

Where are firms putting their marketing dollars this year? And where do you think firms should be putting their marketing dollars to achieve the best results?

Many CPA firms’ marketing directors are confiding to me that their firm maintains a generic advertising campaign in their local market’s Business Journal, large Chamber publication and/or general billboard, etc.

I would strongly emphasize that there be a switch in focus to more finely-tuned trade or niche-focused publications that meet their criteria for an ideal target audience.  In other words, figure out specifically what type of client you want to attract – then target the publications, events, etc. where those decision-makers will be.  That’s where your marketing dollars should  go.  You will find that these narrowly-focused endeavors cost a fraction of the cost for the more general traditional efforts – and you will get a much bigger bang for your buck!

5 MAJOR Mis-Steps In Succession Planning

With baby boomers starting to retire in leaps and bounds, professional services firms are desperately seeking their predecessors to lead their firms.  Here are some of the most common mis-perceptions and limiting beliefs that I think should be re-considered:

1.      Your next Managing Partner is your best business developer

2.      Your next Managing Partner should be over 50 years old

3.      Your next Managing Partner should be a professional like the rest of you

4.      Your next Managing Partner should still service a decent-sized book of business

5.      Your next Managing Partner has to be selected from your current pool of professionals

The MP of your firm needs the skill set – as well as the time – to serve your firm shareholders and professionals in a way that offers them the attention they deserve.  If they’re out there selling all the time or handling “A” clients, it doesn’t leave much time for the rest.  If the MP selected is the “next in line” (which I see happening  a lot), you’re looking a short reign, without consistency or the time to fully implement new strategies before they retire as well.  Ideally, you are asking the second-tiered generation of professionals for those who are interested in becoming a leader in the firm so training and coaching can start now…but if you don’t have that luxury of time (and many don’t) don’t be afraid to look elsewhere (an up and coming professional at a firm elsewhere that might be partner-heavy) or a firm administrator non-accredited professional “outside” your industry.

Be innovative and think outside the box -  release yourself from long-standing unnecessary agreements that dictate what you can and cannot do – the world is your oyster – break the rules and THRIVE!